Nacho Gil scored during first-half stoppage time to lift the New England Revolution to their first point of the season thanks to a 1-1 draw against the Chicago Fire on Saturday afternoon in Foxborough, Mass.
New England’s Caleb Porter became the 13th MLS coach to manage 300 regular-season matches in the league. He is 5-1-9 in 15 meetings with Chicago.
In the 67th minute, Revolution goalkeeper Earl Edwards Jr. made amends for an egregious failed clearance attempt by denying Georgios Koutsias from short range. Edwards was making his season debut in place of Henrich Ravas, who was away on international duty with Slovakia.
New England also competed without Esmir Bajraktarevic (U.S. Olympic team) and Noel Buck (England Under-19s). Chicago, in turn, played without Xherdan Shaqiri (international duty, Switzerland) and Sergio Oregel (United States Under-19s).
New England (0-4-1, 1 point), which was unable to convert any of its five corner kicks, is off to its worst start since going 0-6-0 in 2001. The Revolution, however, ran their unbeaten streak against the Fire to 11 matches (3-0-8).
Hugo Cuypers scored in the 20th minute and Spencer Richey made three saves for Chicago (1-2-2, 5 points), which followed up a spirited rally in a 4-3 victory over CF Montreal last Saturday.
Fabian Herbers’ neat diagonal centering feed found Cuypers in stride, and the latter deposited the ball into the right corner to open the scoring. The goal was Cuypers’ second in as many matches.
New England forged a 1-1 tie after Gil cleaned up the rebound of Carles Gil’s left-footed shot from the left side of the box. The goal was the first of the season for Nacho Gil, who was questionable to play due to a knee injury.
–Field Level Media
